Lost Boi (22 page)

I worked my way to the top at the shelter. Now I'm the boss, the manager who gets woken in the night when something has gone wrong. But I still know how to break up a fight, to talk a kid down, to call 911 when someone is overdosing. I never knew how hard it would be. I left Pan to save youth in a different way, to work within systems, to create infrastructure and understanding, to rewrite failed policies. I wanted to do something bigger than Neverland, to give more youth more choices. Maybe Pan had the right idea after all. He's been saving kids every day for decades, giving them home, family, and purpose. I know how much that can mean to someone, how it can be the difference between life and death, how it was for me.

What am I really doing now? Sitting in an office. Making mandated reporter calls to child protective services every time a baby queer kid runs away from some grownups who the law says owns them. I'm turning these kids over to the most evil grownups because some bureaucrat in a suit thinks that's what's best for them, because some researcher who goes “home” every Thanksgiving decided that kids who don't reunify with their biological families are doomed to be depressed or drug-addicted or suicidal.

I like to think that I'm better than those adults I ran away from all those years ago in NYC, but that might just be a story I tell myself. “Actions speak louder than promises,” Pan always said. I don't talk about myself at work anymore. When I first started, I talked about who I'd been. When I
first started, the kids loved me, and I felt like everything was worth it, like I was making Pan proud, even if he would never know what I was doing. The people I work with don't always see it that way. Once, I accidentally saw a letter from my boss to some board members. She said all kinds of stuff about what a good worker I was, how in any crisis, I was the one that they wanted to call in. But then, the letter went on, she said they needed to be careful how high they promoted me; after all, I would always be a “street kid.” My eyes burned. I crumpled the memo and threw it into the trash. Fuck recycling.

I hid in the bathroom for a while, running my fingers along the faded star scars on my right shoulder. When I got home that night, Wendi knew that I wasn't okay. That night, in our bed of fresh sheets, she held me and I cried. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I worked, I would never be good enough. What if everything, every sacrifice, had been a mistake? I cried harder when I remembered the way that Wendi would hold Pan, the same way that she now held me. It was right about then that we started going to play parties and conferences. It was Wendi's idea. She was so busy with budgets and orders at her job running the coffee shop, but she knew that the magic was fading and we needed to do something.

I saw him first. I was at the coffee shop one night, helping Wendi to close up. The month before, we'd bought it from the old owner, and every night, when I got off work, I'd go to the shop and help Wendi: mopping floors, painting walls,
hanging art, being her good boi, doing whatever she needed. Jane was there, too. She's a good grrrl. When I got promoted, Wendi and I started spending more time at those Leather conferences, going out and trying to find community, trying to find more folks like us. We met Jane at one of those conferences and were smitten. Little pink pigtails and thrifted dresses, Jane reminds me so much of Wendi when we first met, so perverted and innocent all at once. I found Jane walking around the play space wearing a white dress and carrying a teddy bear cradled in her arms.

I've grown so much since we left Neverland. The world has aged me in so many ways, and I can't always find the magic to be the little boi that Wendi first loved and brought home. We're lucky that we've grown together in so many aspects, but I knew that Wendi missed that little magic. When I met Jane, I saw she was all magic. I felt lecherous, a little like Pan, when I first took her. Of course, she was no baby dyke; she was twenty-one and knew what she wanted, but she hadn't grown up (yet). She still held all the magic, and I knew Wendi would love to Mommy the hell out of that little grrrl. I was right. It was a fast courtship into making Jane our good grrrl. Part of why we got the bigger apartment was to have room for her to move in, and now she works with Wendi in the coffee shop, taking orders and wiping counters.

So, I saw him first. There was so much grey in his red hair, but somehow it only made him look more charming. Pan chose a small table in the front, tossing his backpack onto
the empty chair before going to the counter. I kept my head turned so he couldn't catch my face. Jane was on register. Pan began emptying his pockets, smoothing out a crumpled bill, and stacking coins. He ordered a coffee with extra sugar and told Jane what a pretty little grrrl she was. Jane blushed; his charms were just as powerful as ever. The shop was quiet, with most customers busy on their laptops or in conversation. Jane took two of the day-old bagels from the container behind the counter and brought them to Pan with his coffee. We keep them there for the street kids who can't get a bed at my work, the ones who spend all night in the coffee shop. Wendi can't bear to see a baby queer go hungry and neither can I.

Pan nodded to the chair across from his and shrugged Hook's jacket onto the back of his chair. It wasn't worn in the way I might have expected it would be, but scuff-free and as clean as on that horrible night when he first put it on. All I could think was that he must have a boi good with leathers back at Neverland. Jane hesitated, looking up at me. Good grrrl, she's such a good grrrl. I nodded my consent. I wasn't sure how Wendi would feel about her sitting there with Pan, falling under his charm, but how could I say no? After all these years, if he had nodded to me, I would have sat in that little chair across from him. Fuck, I would have sat at his goddamn feet if he would permit it. But this isn't about me now, it's about Jane. Pan was talking big, his hands flying in wild gestures. I knew he was talking about Neverland, though I could only pick up stray words—“bois,” “pigeons,” “battle.”

All afternoon, I'd been training new staff at the shelter, who see it as just a job. Some of them are afraid of the youth and seem personally offended when they act like the fucked-up kids they are, when they don't trust us, when they push against boundaries. This isn't where these grownups come from. They don't get these kids, they never were these kids, and they don't understand why I care so much. Sometimes I just want to walk out the door and never come back. Right before I left the shelter for the night, I had to turn two sweet baby street punks away because we were already over capacity, with a wait list stretching into next month for an emergency bed. They didn't even seem surprised. They're used to getting fucked over, used to adults like me not coming through for anything. Sometimes I just want to bring all these kids home with me, but that would make me no different than Pan. I was snapped out of my memory then by Pan's laughter. He looked so much less tired than I felt.

The bell on the door jingled, and Wendi walked into the shop. Her hair was up in a messy bun, but her lipstick was fresh. She carried a big stack of evening newspapers. Without thinking, I moved from my hiding spot in the back to help her. Pan's eyes met Wendi's, then travelled to her neck and the stone that rested in the hollow of her throat. He wasn't surprised to see her. When we bought the shop, she'd changed its name to “Second Star,” a reference to Pan's “second streetlight” directions to Neverland. Wendi wanted to be followed by Pan, always. I knew it wouldn't take long. Pan's relationship
to Wendi is unique. He's never forgotten her, the way he has forgotten everyone else. Wendi set down the newspapers and ran her fingers through the tendrils that had fallen loose from her bun. Pan's attention had already returned to Jane, this little grrrl that looked so much like his Wendi had the day he first climbed into her window at the Darlings'. Jane had taken a tiny notebook from her pocket and looked as though she was about to read him one of her poems, but stopped and looked to Wendi. I could see Wendi's eyes fill with tears, but she only nodded to our grrrl. We watched them talk and Jane read, and I held Wendi.

It was late when Pan stood to go, pulling on Hook's leather. I heard Jane ask, “Will I see you again?”

A huge smile spread across Pan's face as he nodded, holding her soft hand and closing his tattooed, scarred fingers around it. Pan turned toward the counter where I now stood next to Wendi, but he didn't recognize me anymore. Everything we were, everything we had, everything we shared was gone. Pan's eyes were not sad but distant, as though he didn't quite remember who I was. Wendi walked toward them and pulled Jane in for a tight hug. Then she pulled Jane's chin up so that Jane was eye-to-eye with her Mommy and whispered loud enough for Pan to hear, “My dear grrrl, I will always keep the window open for you.”

Jane smiled and walked out the door with Pan into the night, toward Neverland.

Acknowledgments

F
irst and foremost, thank you to J.M. Barrie who wrote the original
Peter Pan
, which inspired this book. Queering his work has been a tremendous honour and a great deal of fun. Thank you to the Lambda Literary Foundation whose ongoing support has been invaluable, and to my beta readers: Fureigh, Kestryl Lowrey, and Sophia Lanza-Weil, who read early drafts of the novel and whose insights were critical to its development, and to my copyeditor Gabrielle Harbowy.

Thank you to Linda Hummer for helping me to believe I had stories to be told. I wish you were here to see this book. Thank you to Auntie Kate Bornstein for dragging me onto the stage and for teaching me to harness the power of anger in my writing. Thank you to the MTA for your endless subway delays, which afforded me the time I needed to write this book. Gratitude to my fellow New Yorkers who offered me their seats after watching me precariously type
while standing, and to the iPad I used to write the majority of this book. Also thanks to the bubble tea shop on St. Marks Place in the East Village, where the novel was edited on lunch breaks from my day job.

A very special thanks to Tom Cho, Amber Dawn, and Bear Bergman who introduced me to the amazing folks at Arsenal Pulp Press. A huge thank you to Brian Lam for believing in this story and the entire Arsenal Pulp team, especially Susan Safyan for your insightful editorial feedback and love of pigeons. Working with all of you has been a dream come true.

Tremendous gratitude to Bluestockings bookstore and Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. Thanks to Charis Books and all the other independent queer/feminist bookstores across the United States and Europe that have welcomed me and always carried my books. Thank you to the pigeons of NYC's Washington Square Park who let me study them as I wrote, and the park's human inhabitants who taught me how to befriend them.

Finally, a huge thank you to my Queer and Leather family for believing in me and my work: my dyke moms, my big brother Matthew, and my uncle Toni Amato who always encouraged me to edge play with my writing and create the most dangerous stories I could imagine. This book was made possible by my (not so) tiny menagerie of dogs (Mercury & Charlotte) and cats (Sierra, Noirchat, & Thing) with whom I make a home, and last and certainly not least, for Kestryl, my partner in life and art. Thank you, Daddy, for cooking me
dinner, baking me cupcakes, and taking me to Disneyland. Thank you for beta reading and copyediting, and above all, thank you for building a home that is a magical sanctuary from the grownup world.